Crestron  Click to enlarge. Isys advanced touchpanel control systems Announced at this year's CES, the new TPS-4500 is the latest addition to Crestron's Isys, part of the Crestron Home line of fully integrated home automation control products. The lineup includes in-wall and wireless touchpanels, keypads, control processors, audio amplifiers, tuners and switchers and more. With this professionally-installed open-architecture system, it's possible to operate any number of devices throughout the home, monitor audio and video systems, control lighting and drapes, check security cameras and much more - all from the same touchscreen. The TPS-4500 features a sleek, ergonomic design and high performance graphics capabilities with its 12" touch-sensitive active matrix color 800x600 display. The base features a 30-80 degree tilt design which makes the 65,000 color graphics - 2D and 3D logos, photos and animation - easy to see at almost any angle. The TPS-4500 incorporates a distinctive modular design that allows users to upgrade capabilities by adding expansion cards for video, memory and RF wireless communications. With the optional TPS-VID card, the TPS-4500 can display full-motion NTSC or PAL video from composite or S-Video sources in 256,000 colors. Click to enlarge. Crestron's exclusive VisionTools Pro-e design and programming software allows the TPS-4500 to incorporate a nearly unlimited number of control screens with up to 4,000 functions including buttons, sliders, digital readouts, pop-up menus, icons and much more. The new model's 12mb of memory is expandable to 64 megabytes and is fully multi-tasking. The TPS-4500 comes by default with an RS-232 port. The TPS-4500 joins the more advanced TPS-5000, also a 12" display model, but with included 10/100 Ethernet, a built-in web server, audio capabilities and more. The TPS-6000 is the most advanced model and features a 15" 1024x768 display, built-in Ethernet, web server, audio, 16 megabytes of memory and more. With Ethernet and secured web serving capabilities, it's possible to fully monitor and control your home from anywhere in the world via the Internet. The demonstration system set up at CES 2001 proved the Isys to be the ultimate in home automation control - beautiful graphics, quick response, full-motion video, the ability to fully control a PC. So how much for this automation nirvana? Well, due to the custom installed nature of their products Crestron does not actually release details on pricing. But as the old saying goes, "if you need to ask, you can't afford it".

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